


A Mile in someone else's shoes

by luxshine, Milosflaca



Category: Backstreet Boys, NSYNC, Popslash
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-21
Updated: 2011-03-21
Packaged: 2017-10-17 04:50:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/173080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luxshine/pseuds/luxshine, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Milosflaca/pseuds/Milosflaca
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chris doesn’t like his life. Nick hates his own. When they make a wish, things go wrong quite fast and Howie and Joey are left to pick up the pieces.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Mile in someone else's shoes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dexwebster](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dexwebster/gifts).



> his was written for DWNOGA 2006, for dexwebster. It was written in less than 24 hours, which was quite a feat, with a ton of coffee, redbull, and the help of yahoo messenger so we would stay awake until it was done. Many thanks to patchworkdragon and ephemera_pop for their quick beta.

**1.- It all starts with a wish...**

  
"You're insane, Chris! You should start acting your age!" Lance complained, loud enough to make Chris look up from his current activity: playing gameboy upside down. He was not sitting on the couch, though his legs were propped on it. His head was resting on the floor, so the braids were all sprawled over the tiles. It wasn’t quite as disturbing as it had been when Chris had had the white extensions, but it still made Lance groan.

"What's up your ass now, Lance?" Chris asked, wearily, without taking his eyes away off from the tiny screen.

"What? You even have to ask ‘what’? Why did you tell the interviewer that we were dating?"

"It was a joke, Lance. Nothing more. It’s not like it’s true, anyway." Chris returned to his game, only to have it confiscated by Lance. "Hey! What the fuck?"

"Chris! I'm serious! You were making faces at the reporter! And your joke wasn’t funny!” Lance groaned. "You should know better! It’s not as if you’re Justin's age!"

"Whatever." Chris got up, snatched his Gameboy back and left the room, fuming.

 _“Jerk,”_ Chris thought, jumping the steps two at a time. _“I bet Nick never gets yelled at for having fun. And of course, this happens because we’re *N Sync and we have to prove we’re in the business for the music, not like the fucking Backstreet Boys who are only having fun. Like Nick. I’m sure Nick can play with his Gameboy whenever he wants. Hell, Nick can gawk at Justin and no one calls him a dirty old pervert for that! I wish…”_

* * *

"I think…."

"Maybe we could just tone down the choreography a little," AJ interrupted, before Nick could say anything. "That way no one would realize Brian’s heart is still a little weak.”

"Well, but…"

"Like we could hide anything from our fans. They know the choreography better than we do." Howie shook his head. "They would notice."

"And if…"

"I don't want you guys worrying about me," Brian forestalled Nick. "I still can dance, you know? And it’s just until the medication clears out completely."

"Until you fall dead on the stage," Kevin said, ignoring that Nick was about to say something. "I still think the best solution is put in more slow songs and back up dancers."

"Guys, we could…"

"Nick, we're trying to decide something here!" Kevin said, tiredly. They had been discussing the second leg of the tour and Brian’s health for hours. "If you’re bored, you can go to your room if you want.”

Nick frowned, angry. "Fine!" He said, turning to leave the room. Before closing the door, he heard Howie, his roommate, speak up again.

"You didn't have to be so mean, Kevin. Nick's just a kid, but he’s probably trying to help."

 _“Just a kid,”_ he thought, furious. _“I bet no one calls Chris just a kid. Sure, he’s old, he can’t be just a kid. But has anyone looked at his hair? It looks like a stork’s nest! The man plays with his gameboy during interviews and I bet his bandmates take him seriously no matter what he does! How could they not? He formed the group! Hell, Justin practically worships the ground Chris walks on. I wish…”_

  
**2.- ...fuck! Something is not quite right...**   


  
Chris woke up dizzy, with a killer headache, and needing to pee.

Except for the bag that was lying haphazardly on the floor, everything seemed out of place. When he opened the door to the bathroom, he ended up outside his room. He tried the other door, the one that went out to the hall, and found the bathroom.

He turned on the lights and, just by mere instinct, pulled out his dick from his boxers. Then he noticed the first weird thing.

The hair peeking out of his underwear was blonde, not brown. And there was a lot less than he remembered.

Plus, he wasn’t wearing his favorite Bart Simpson boxers, which he clearly remembered wearing the night before. He was wearing Calvin Klein briefs.

"Fucking jokers…" He muttered, not wanting to think about exactly how his bandmates had dyed his pubic hair blond and changed his underwear without him noticing.

He finished and started washing his hands, frowning a little more when he realized the sink seemed to be lower than last night.

Then he looked at the mirror, and saw the worst pin up of Nick Carter ever printed.

Disheveled, no make up, hair sticking in the wrong directions, big bags under his eyes. Chris thought that Justin would probably love that picture and smiled.

The Nick in the mirror smiled too.

Chris blinked.

Nick blinked.

Chris placed one hand in the mirror, to see the movement reflected back. Then, he placed his hand on his cheek, seeing how the Nick in the mirror did the same. Chris placed his other hand on his other cheek, his movements mirrored by Nick.

Finally, it dawned on him. The man in the mirror was not Nick Carter. It was his reflection.

It was his face.

And he screamed, his hands still plastered to his checks, and the scream sounded like Nick Carter's terrified voice.

* * *

Howie was peacefully sleeping when Nick's blood curling yell woke him up.

He jumped up from the bed, and ran into the bathroom where Nick was standing in front of the mirror, not bleeding, or ambushed by hidden fans.

"It's way too early to be doing Maculay Culkin's impressions, Nick," Howie said, turning around to go back to sleep.

"Ho… Howie?" Nick called, sounding very confused. Different.

"Yeah, Ni…" Howie stopped in mid-sentence, focusing on Nick’s face.

It looked somewhat different. Howie just couldn’t place what it was. His hair was still blonde and still cut in the same childish look that he had wore for a long time, that now looked a bit out of place as Nick had grown older. His nose, his mouth. Everything was the same. His eyes...

Howie gasped, surprised, as he realized what was wrong.

Nick's eyes were **brown.**

“Nick,” he said, very slowly. He almost never treated Nick as a child, except in very particular occasions. “Congratulations. You almost got me. But I know you’re wearing contact lenses, and it’s too early for joking around. Take them off and go to sleep.”

“Howie… I’m not Nick,” Nick said, sounding terrified.

“Yeah, right,” Howie shook his head. Nick was wearing some amazing contact lenses, they almost looked like if they were his real eyes. Only brown. “You’re a fan in disguise. No, wait, I know. You’re a grown up Aaron. Or my fairy godfather. Whatever. I’m sleepy.”

“I’m serious! Look at me!” Nick insisted, holding him by the shoulders. Howie complied. He had learned quite early that sometimes it was better to just humor Nick.

Nick looked at him, urging him to see something. Howie frowned. The brown eyes were familiar. Older than Nick’s, but still quite familiar. In fact, they looked a lot like Chris’s eyes.

Howie’s own eyes widened in recognition and shock.

" **Chris**?!"

* * *

It took Chris about 10 minutes to calm down, and try and understand what was going on. Apparently, he was in Nick Carter's body, in the room Nick shared with Howie.

"Who was your roommate last night?" Howie suddenly asked as he finished fixing his first cup of tea of the morning. He’d listened carefully as Chris went over and over the night's events trying to figure out what had happened.

"Why? You think my friends had something to do with this?" Chris / Nick asked, frowning. Howie sighed. Seeing a Chris’s frown on Nick's face was disturbing. “I’m pretty sure none of my friends has a brain swapping machine in their baggage!”

"I’m not thinking about that," Howie explained, slowly. "But if you're in Nick's body, where do you think Nick is?”

"Shit!" Chris's eyes shoot wide open. "I was rooming with Justin!"

* * *

The first thing Nick registered was that someone had left a cell phone under his pillow. Because he was pretty sure he hadn’t set his alarm clock to sound to the tune of Giddy Up.

Without even opening his eyes, he blindly grabbed the offending phone and answered. It was a thing for him. If a phone was ringing, he had to answer it.

"H'lo?"

"Nick? Is that you?"

"Sure, Howie…" Nick was aware that he was really asleep, as his voice sounded freakishly high. "Why are you calling me on my cell? You’re rooming with me.”

"I had to go out. Don’t turn around and listen to me. I need you to go to the bathroom. It's the door to the left, as if you were going to the hall."

"Why?" Nick frowned. His hair felt weird too, as it scratched his cheek. "What are you up to?"

"Just go, ok? You owe me one for all the times I’ve followed you without question. And please promise me you won't freak out." Nick nodded getting up without further protest. Howie had a point.

He walked in the direction of what he thought was the exit of the room, wondering what his roommate was planning.

"Why would I freak out?" Nick asked to the phone, as he glanced up to the bathroom mirror.

His voice, the one that didn't sound like his voice, faded.

Because staring right at him, just at eye level, talking to his cell phone, was Chris Kirkpatrick of *N Sync.

"Wha… wha…"

"Don't hyperventilate, Nick." Howie's voice told him trough the cell. And since Nick had always trusted Howie, he tried his best to obey. He just closed his eyes, not wanting to see the face blinking at him.

“What do you mean by ‘Don’t hyperventilate’? Howie, come on! How am I supposed not to hyperventilate? I look like Chris! Why the fuck do I look like Chris? What the hell happened?”

"We don't know, Nick… Chris is as confused as you are…"

"Chris? He's there?" Nick asked, before registering what Howie had just said. "In **my** body?"

"Nick, be quiet! You don’t want to wake Justin up!” Howie shushed him. "Yes, he is here. But please, don’t panic, we're going to take care of this problem, somehow. But we need to talk. I think we can go 'missing' for a couple of hours, but I don't know if you… if Chris can."

"How the fuck I’m supposed to know if Chris can go out today? Why don't you ask him?" Nick whispered, refusing to look at himself in the mirror again.

* * *

Chris didn't know if he was supposed to have a free day. That was apparently Lance's job.

But after a couple more false starts, they managed to arrange a rendezvous later that day, at a Starbucks not far away from *N Sync's hotel.

Unfortunately, that meant that Nick had to spend six hours with *N Sync. Six hours pretending he was Chris Kirkpatrick and that there was nothing wrong with him.

Not an easy task.

The first problem he found out was that he had blue eyes, which looked strange and even a bit creepy on Chris’s face. Thankfully, Chris had almost as many pairs of dark glasses as AJ. The second problem was to find something to wear. Nothing in Chris’s bag was even remotely like Nick’s style.

And as he kept looking for something suitable, Justin just stared at him, making his pretending harder. He was sure Justin would discover him right there.

Justin **had** to know that there was something wrong with Chris, just by looking at Nick.

"Chris? You all right?"

"Yeah, I’m fine. Justin. I'm just tired. That's all."

"Look, if this is about what Lance said yesterday, don’t listen to him. He’s an ass." As Justin smiled, forcing Nick/Chris to return the gesture with a fake smile.

"I said I'm just tired," Nick said, leaving the room quickly.

He was worried the others would try to question his bad mood, but he managed to avoid any interaction with JC or Lance by simply putting on Chris’s headphones and listening to Busta Rhymes for a while.

Unfortunately, that trick didn’t work on Joey.

Because Joey barged in the quiet room and jerked the earphones off Nick's ears.

"What's the fuck is going on, Kirkpatrick?" He demanded, and Nick noticed for the first time how much shorter Chris really was. In his own body, Nick had been able to look Joey in the eyes. Now, he was treated to a view of his collarbone. He had to admit, he was scared.

"Nothing." Nick stepped back, but not fast enough to avoid Joey’s quick hand that grabbed his glasses, revealing his startled blue eyes.

* * *

Chris almost choked on his cappuccino when he saw himself and Joey enter the place, followed at a discrete distance by Lonnie and Drew.

"What's he doing here?" he asked, still wincing upon hearing Nick's voice as his own.

"Sorry, he found out I’m not you. But we should have known it would happen. I'm a lousy actor." Nick shrugged, sitting down next to Howie.

"Yeah. Don’t quit singing just yet," Joey agreed, then looked at Chris, who now felt awkward and tall. "Wow."

"That's all you have to say?" Chris frowned. "Even Howie had more to say! Wow is not enough to describe this situation. ‘Wow’ is too short!"

"Ok, now I know it’s you, Chris," Joey laughed, and sat down. "How did you manage to do it?"

"Well, we’re really mutant telepaths, Fatone. You just discovered our secret. Obviously we don't know how it happened," Nick answered, quite annoyed by the question since they had discussed that to death with Howie and Chris over the phone. Sure, Joey had no way of knowing that, but it still annoyed Nick. "And before you ask, no, we don't know how to undo it, either."

"So, Chris and Nick are stuck as each other until we figure out what happened or it wears off," Howie finished, not caring much for Nick’s sarcastic tone. He understood that his friend was annoyed with everything. "And at a bad time for us. We're about to start the second leg of the tour."

"It's bad for us too." Joey shook his head. "We're finishing our own tour."

"And starting a new album," Chris added. "We're fucked!"

* * *

By the time they parted, contacts lenses were agreed on and bought, Nick had promised to be careful, and Chris had promised to behave.

But Joey still had one more thing to deal with. So as soon as they finished the last agreement, he grabbed Chris's elbow and dragged him into the bathroom.

"Are you sure you'll be all right?" He asked, watching Chris shrug with Nick’s shoulders. Joey was sure he wouldn’t get used to the situation, because it didn’t matter if the man in front of him was tall and blonde, he still had Chris's gestures and body language.

"Sure. Give me a little credit." Chris' voice was confident, but since he refused to meet Joey's eyes, Joey knew Chris was lying. “How hard can it be to be Nick Carter? The kid has the personality of a cutout cardboard.”

"This is not so easy, Chris. You'll be near you-know-who 24 / 7, and he’ll be there, talking about how he is so much better than us, all the time. This won’t be as easy as hiding your BSB clipping collection and the makeshift Kevin voodoo dolls from us," Joey insisted.

"I said I could handle it," Chris answered, looking at the mirror where a brown eyed Nick was staring back at him. "Besides, Nick is like his younger brother, so he won’t kill me if I tell him he’s an ass. And I will finally get to act my mental age. Wasn’t that what you guys wanted?"

  
**3.- Fuck! I'm going to kill him.**   


  
Being Chris Kirkpatrick wasn't as much fun as Nick had thought it would be.

In fact, it was a lot more difficult.

Early on the second day, he had faked twisting his ankle, effectively avoiding the embarrassing moment when everyone realized he didn't know the dance routines.

Or the songs.

His ‘injury’ gave him a little time to learn them both.

But that wasn’t the really big problem. The big problem was Dani.

Dani, who called day and night, who was Chris's girlfriend, and who, on top of everything, expected Nick/Chris to handle decisions about a new clothing line or company or something… And Nick shuddered to think what would happen when Dani choose to come to visit.

Easy as cake.

Not at all. Joey was a big help there, with the songs, and with Dani, but it was still totally outside Nick’s experience with girls.

Dani was a ‘real’ girlfriend. Not a company appointed girlfriend so that no one would notice someone’s embarrassing crush with his older bandmate. Not that Nick still had a crush on Kevin. That had lasted until Kevin grounded him that first time he caught Nick going to a bar with a fake ID.

If she wanted to have sex with Nick/Chris, Nick was fucked. Chris would kill Nick if Nick dared to touch **his** girlfriend. Of course, there was the little matter that she could get mad at Nick for not having sex with her, and if she dumped Chris because of this, Chris would still kill Nick.

And it wasn’t as if Nick wanted to have sex with a woman, anyway.

The whole situation was making his life a living hell. The braids, for example, were getting on his nerves. To put it bluntly, they pissed him off. And he simply couldn't get used to the range his new voice had.

No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t control it and he kept singing higher than needed. If Lance made another joke about late puberty, Nick was going to kill him.

Still, he had managed to get Chris away from Justin. Sure, he still had to see Chris’s body near Justin, because he was in Chris’s body, but the important part, **Chris** , was finally away from Justin.

* * *

Being Nick Carter was a living hell. Or at least, for Chris it was.

Learning the songs the Backstreet Boys sang wasn't an easy task. Especially since Nick had a fucking solo in every single one of them, and his range wasn't as high as Chris’s.

Thankfully, the choreography wasn't as complicated as what Wade did, and Howie helped him to get up to date pretty quickly so that no one would notice that something was wrong.

The thing that Chris hated the most was that all sugary desserts and candy were off limits for him. It seemed to him that every time he tried to eat something with sugar, Kevin, AJ or Brian would drag him off somewhere else. It was making Chris suspect that Nick was diabetic, the way they tried to keep him away from candy.

To make things even worse, Brian kept inviting him to play basketball, even though the guys had told him to stop playing because of his heart condition. But Brian kept insisting and truth to be told, Chris wasn't a bad player, but since he couldn't get used to Nick's height he sucked on the court.

So, yes, being Nick wasn’t as fun as he thought it could be.

Still, he was going to have his chance to drive Kevin crazy, to take revenge over some of the things he had said about him and *N Sync. And that made things almost ok.

* * *

"What's wrong with Chris?" Lance asked pretty much nonchalantly as he sat next to Joey in the rehearsal room. They were watching how Justin kept going trough the steps for Bye Bye Bye, while Chris watched him intently.

"He twisted his ankle." Joey answered, not taking his eyes away from the other two.

"That was two weeks ago." Lance counterattacked. "And now that I think of it, I've never seen Chris this still before."

"Maybe the late night phone meeting with Dani tired him out." Joey attempted to change the subject, but Lance didn't seem convinced. "C'mon Lance, you know how it is."

"I know how it used to be." Lance shook his head, looking sad for a moment before setting his clear gaze on Joey. "They fought last night. Maybe Chris is depressed. Does he look depressed to you?"

"What?!" Joey almost spit out the juice he was drinking. Last time he had seen 'Chris' talk to Dani, everything seemed fine.

"I got the room next to theirs. Dani sounded pretty upset. I just couldn’t hear if it was because Chris has suddenly become obsessed with the subject of the things he did with Justin in the past three months, or because he forgot about the Fumanskeeto meeting they were supposed to have yesterday."

"Chris isn’t obsessed with Justin," Joey protested, feeling a black pit of despair forming on the base of his stomach.

"He wasn't," Lance agreed. "But two weeks ago, he started to sound like it. You just can’t tell me you haven’t noticed. And even if you didn’t, Dani did, and that’s what matters. I think they broke up.”

Joey closed his eyes. While he knew that Chris and Dani were having some troubles before the body swap happened, he also knew that Chris was trying to make things work between them. He was not going to take it well when he found out that Nick had ruined all his efforts, apparently just by missing one meeting.

* * *

"What's wrong with Nick?" Brian asked, pretty much nonchalantly as he sat next to Howie in the quiet room. It was five minutes before the concert and Nick was reading a newspaper not too far away from them, frowning.

"What do you mean?" Howie chocked on his tea. He knew Chris wasn't doing a great job as 'Nick' but he never thought someone would notice after just a month. Howie had proposed they told the others, but Joey, Nick and Chris had out voted him. Chris was sure that the other Backstreet Boys would blame him for the swap, Nick was sure that *N Sync would pin the blame on him, and Joey simply stated that no one would believe them anyway, since both Nick and Chris had a reputation of being pranksters.

"Well, he seems to have energy to make up for all of us lately," Brian explained, watching how Nick's frown deepened and then how his eyes bulged out as he kept reading. "Not to mention he's been having weird mood swings and getting worse at basketball. He hasn’t bugged you for almost two weeks, either. It’s like he has become another person.”

"I’m glad to hear that you think bugging me is such an essential part of Nick’s personality, Brian," Howie said, shaking his head. He just wanted to leave Brian and go and see what was wrong with Chris. But Brian wasn't going to let it go lightly. When Howie got to his feet, Brian grabbed his arm and forced him to turn around. “Look, isn’t it a good thing that he finally grew out of that?”

"Well yes, but still he looks different somehow. You know what’s going on, right?" When Howie nodded, Brian closed his eyes. "It's not drugs, is it?"

"Of course not! He’s just, you know…" But anything Howie might have said was silenced by Nick's enraged yell.

"I’m going to kill that little fuck!" He yelled, as he trashed the newspaper in a tiny ball and pulled out his cell phone.

It was right then when Howie knew nothing was going to be all right ever again.

* * *

It took all of Joey's will power to stop himself from killing Nick when he saw him enter the room where their new cover photo shot was being done.

He knew Nick was upset at Chris for the news that had been reported by every paparazzi in the world the day before, but that was no reason to do what Nick had done. It wasn't as if Nick had loved his girlfriend Mandy.

"You look good!" Justin was the first to recover from the shock, smiling at Nick in Chris' body. Nick beamed, a Carter smile in Chris's face, and suddenly Joey just couldn’t take it anymore. He stepped forward and grabbed Nick / Chris's elbow and pulled him away from the others.

"What the fuck are you doing, Carter?" He growled, pointing at Chris's now short hair.

"Simple." Nick answered, making Chris' voice sound cruel and cunning. "Your friend fucks up my life, I fuck up his hair.”

* * *

Howie could understand Chris' rage when they saw *N Sync's latest photos. While Kevin and Brian commented on how nice it was to see that Kirkpatrick was finally coming to his senses and acting like an adult, Howie could only think about how much the braids meant to Chris, and how they used to be his pride and joy.

But as sympathetic as he was about hair matters, he couldn't agree with Chris's unsettling desire to make things 'even'.

Not when it meant seeing 'Nick' eating 24/7, pumping his body full of sugar, or changing girlfriends as if they were dirty socks.

"Is Nick all right, Howie?" Kevin asked him, after an interview where Nick said that he wished that Eminem targeted them instead of *N Sync in his songs. "He seems out of it lately."

"I'm sure it's just because of his latest breakup, Kevin." Howie answered, wondering where Chris was at that precise moment. "It'll pass."

And he prayed that he was right.

* * *

"This is getting out of hand," Joey said into his phone, after making sure no one could listen to his conversation. "Nick has just put Chris on a 'diet'. He says he's going to make him look like a, and I quote, 'fucking balloon'."

"That was more or less Chris's plan for Nick's body," Howie answered, sullenly. "Only that he seems to burn energy with the same speed as he eats it. He's going give Brian a heart attack. But on the plus side, he’s getting a lot better at basketball."

"Any luck on your side of research?"

"No. No ancient Incan skulls in our mail lately, no weird Puerto Rican curses. Zero, zip, nada. And you?"

"Well, my grandma said something about wishes and true love. But I couldn't make a lot of sense from her Italian. And no, no eclipses, planet alignments or government created diseases."

Both singers sighed and, half a country between them, both turned on MTV, only to wince at the news of Nick Carter's latest announcement: making comics with Stan Lee.

"God, I have no idea how he convinced management and Kevin of that," Howie complained, closing his eyes. “He put me in a poncho. I’m a telepathic illusionist in a lame poncho that doesn’t match my pants”

"It could be worse,” Joey told him, still watching. “At least you won’t have to act like a John Travolta wannabe. Nick is planning Grease 3 with Lance.”

"We’ve got to do something,” Howie finally said. ”Before they manage to ruin both groups, and our nerves, in their stupid war.”

Any words he might have thought of saying were drown by MTV's next news segment where Chris boldly declared that pop, as a style of music, was dead.

* * *

To say that the atmosphere at the 2000 VMAs was tense was an understatement.

Lance, JC, and Justin didn't quite understand the hateful looks Nick Carter was sending their way. Or why Chris looked as if he wished the Backstreet Boys would die the most painful and slow death possible.

Joey, on the other hand, knew.

He knew that Chris was pissed because Nick had broken up with Dani, chopped up his braids, gained 20 pounds, almost wrecked Fumanskeeto, purposely sabotaged *N Sync's Making the Video by acting like a squirrel on crack, made Chris look like and idiot on Larry King Live, Rosie O'Donnell and Hollywood Squares, dressed him worse than JC, and made him look like a loser who couldn’t get a date after Danielle Rabee.

He also knew that Nick was pissed because Chris had broken up with Mandy, Candy, Sherry and Suzzane, making him look like a teenage slut, gained 20 pounds, lost 30 pounds, chopped his blond hair in an array of disheveled spikes, and finally created and destroyed Backstreet Project.

He and Howie had made lists. They were sure that there had to be a pattern that explained what had caused the swap in the first place. They were pretty confident that they could find it, if they compared carefully every single action the guys had taken during the last months, after and before the swap.

Even so, they still weren’t in a position to stop the disaster from happening.

Joey couldn't stop Nick from wearing enough makeup to form his own glam rock band, and he wasn’t in time to warn Howie about Chris's utter hatred for makeup outside a show.

So, he shouldn't have been surprised at all when Chris/Nick took one look at Nick/Chris, growled something under his breath, and turned around planting a big, sloppy, Kirkpatrick kiss on AJ's lips, right there in the red carpet.

In front of the cameras of every single network in America.

"Fuck!"

  
**4.- How the fuck do we solve this?...**   


  
To say everyone was shocked was an understatement.

But no one was more shocked than Alexander James McLean Fernandez, best known as AJ from the Backstreet Boys.

He wasn't shocked that Nick had finally flipped and kissed a man. He had known for quite some time that Nick was gay, more or less since Nick was 17. After sharing a room for a couple of months, it had been hard not to know.

Especially since Nick talked in his sleep. That's how AJ found out.

No. Nick kissing a man didn't surprise AJ.

What was shocking, earth shattering even, was that Nick was kissing **him**.

Because AJ knew that Nick knew that he was straight. AJ also knew that while Nick liked older men with dark hair –and yes, AJ was pretty aware that he fit the profile somehow- Nick had also set his sights on someone else.

The kiss was literally coming out of nowhere, and Chris looked as if he could kill Nick on the spot.

Shocked wouldn't describe how AJ felt when he realized that.

"Well, at least this time his plan is sort of working," He thought, as he tried to pry away from Nick's lips. That was going to make things between them a lot more complicated than just a drunken kiss.

* * *

Lance was shocked.

Nick Carter was kissing AJ McLean in front of witness. Of cameras. Of fucking MTV!

He was being out, and proud and…

 **Kissing** AJ McLean.

Nick Carter was kissing AJ McLean.

Two members of their rival band were kissing in front of paparazzi photographers, parading their love for everyone to see without caring at all that they could be damning their careers.

Trying to look away, he saw Chris's eyes slit and grow darker. And while he could feel some relief at knowing that he wasn’t the only one angered by the reckless display, he knew that he and Chris were angry for two completely different reasons.

And it was not only because he knew Chris as well as the palm of his hand. It was because Lance knew how jealousy looked. He had seen it quite a lot, and he had felt it even more often.

Chris didn’t look angry, or even disgusted. Chris looked jealous.

That had been a surprise for him. He hadn’t known that Chris was gay. But that was understandable. Lance still didn’t have the courage to speak about his own desires either. Even so, he had never expected, not in a million years, that Chris would have a crush on one of the Backstreet Boys.

It did explain why Chris kept clippings of the other band, much better than the makeshift voodoo dolls with Kevin’s likeness.

Still, Lance had always figured Chris would have more taste than to set his heart on AJ.

* * *

As shocked as Lance and AJ were, they weren't as shocked as the fans or management.

Whitin minutes, the rumor mill was running fast around the globe, and AJ and Nick were declared a “couple” without delay. The Backstreet Boys’ PR team almost dropped dead from the shock, but they tried to spin the situation as quickly and efficiently as they could.

Unfortunately, ‘Nick’ had other plans.

* * *

"Look, let me talk to Nick. I'm sure it was all a…"

"Forget it, Howie,” Kevin shook his head, slowly. “I don’t want to hear more about Nick’s phases and how this will all pass soon. It’s ok if Nick is gay, and it’s ok if he wants to have a boyfriend, but he should warn us before pulling that kind of stunt!”

"But…" Howie tried again, this time to be interrupted by Brian.

"Look, the one to blame here is obviously AJ,” Brian said, looking up from his chair. They were in the waiting room for the press conference that their PR had hastily arranged. Nick was going to give a statement about why he had kissed AJ in public and they were there only to show moral support as the press would only take pictures of Nick, and question him and maybe AJ about the kiss.

And AJ was supposed to say that he didn’t know Nick was going to kiss him, and that even when he had nothing against gay lifestyle, he wasn’t gay and neither was Nick.

"Why me?” AJ asked, lowering his dark glasses. “Nick kissed **me**. I was an innocent victim of all this! He should be giving a press conference to apologize to me!”

“Of course not!” Brian answered “You probably put him up to it! What happened between you two? Did you made him do it because he lost a bet?”

"No, he didn't," Nick interrupted, walking towards them. He was wearing jeans and a black t-shirt. “I just thought it would be fun to kiss him. Like **this**.”

And without warning, he promptly illustrated his words by leaning down and stealing a kiss from Brian’s lips.

Then, before anyone could react, he entered the room where the press conference was being held.

* * *

"Well, it was very simple for me. I was standing right there in the red carpet, and I thought, shit. I want to do this forever. I love music, I love performing. So this is it. This is my life. And I’m going to spend all of it lying to everyone if I don’t do something about it. I’ll keep hidden, going through a lot of fake relationships, and that’s going to ruin whatever enjoyment I have from this. I just couldn’t take it anymore. So instead of yelling ‘I’m gay’, I decided to kiss AJ, you know? Just so no one would doubt that I am gay, I like men. Thinking back, that was probably not the smartest thing to do, since AJ isn’t gay, and I think it wasn’t a clear message.” JC finished reading, closing the magazine. “Wow. It must have taken a lot of courage to say that.”

"I can’t believe what he’s doing,” Lance shook his head, frowning. “That’s it. He just committed suicide by media.”

“On the other hand, he’s being truthful. And it’s not as if we all don’t have gay fans, it might make them even more popular,” Justin shrugged. Since this was taking a little heat out of whether he and Britney were having sex or not, he really didn’t care what Nick did. If the paparazzi decided to follow Nick now, maybe he and Britney could get some privacy.

Joey just looked at Chris, biting his lips.

In the race to see who could hurt the other the most, Chris was obviously winning. Which meant that whatever Nick did next was going to be big. And Joey’s job was to stop him, at least until they managed to change them back to their right bodies.

* * *

There was a lot more spin doctoring involved after Nick's little confession. Some fans refused to believe him, some changed favorites but remained faithful to the group. There was some backlash -a couple of radical groups demanded that the Backstreet Boys’ records were taken off the shelves or they would boycott the stores where they carried their albums- but in general, the Backstreet Boys’ fame remained almost untouched.

Nick, on the other hand, was becoming quite popular in LGBT circles, as a young male celebrity that was not afraid to speak up and be true to himself.

Sales for concerts also went up. It seemed everyone, both supporters and boycotters, wanted to see the boyband with the openly gay member as their newest attraction.

"Your little plan backfired, Chris." Howie glared at his old friend, who was currently playing SNK vs. Marvel, sitting upside down on the couch while wolfing down a bag of popcorn.

"No, it didn't," Chris answered. "I didn’t want **you** guys to suffer for what I did. So I was mad, yes, and I wanted to get even with Nick and **clearly** I wasn’t thinking when I kissed AJ, but I could come out of it clean, mostly. And it’s not as if Nick isn’t gay in the first place. I found his stack of porn a couple of days before the VMAs.”

Howie shook his head. There was no reasoning with Chris when he acted like that. And while he was technically right, it still didn’t give him the right to out Nick.

Besides, there still was the fact that Nick hadn’t retaliated.

Howie feared Nick’s revenge.

* * *

"How do you put up with him?" Howie and Joey asked each other when they meet at a very hidden coffee shop in Albany. Then they shared a tired look and started to laugh.

"The official story is that ‘Chris’ is having a hard time getting over the break up, so if he looks angry one moment and high the next is because he still is pinning over Dani," Joey explained when the laugh subdued. "Johnny is afraid of letting him do interviews, though."

"Nick is 'exploring'," Howie laughed, finally managing to find some humor in the situation. “He has come on to himself to everyone in the crew except for me and Kevin. I’m not sure about me, though. He licked me in front of the cameras two days ago. Look, I don’t know what to do anymore, we've got to switch them back!"

"Is a brain transplant still out of the question?" Joey joked, before pushing a paper into Howie's hands." I finally translated what grandma told me."

"Wishes made with one heart, true love shall find. Only selfless acts will prevail, and true happiness will arrive." Howie read, then frowned." Why does this stuff always rhyme?"

"Don’t look at me, my mom did the translation." Joey explained. "What do you make of it?”

"Minus fancy wording?" Howie said, and Joey nodded. "The two idiots made the same wish at the same time and won't switch back until they help the other to find their true love."

"You made all that out of this?" Joey whistled. "I can't believe it, I tried to make sense out of it for weeks"

"I wrote _How did I fall in Love with You_ , and _What Makes you Different Makes You Beautiful_ ," Howie shrugged, smiling. "I'm good with corny metaphors."

"I’ve listened to those songs. They’re really not that corny," Joey objected, but Howie shook his head.

"You don’t have to lie, I know they are," Howie sighed. “Anyway, this gives us a couple of clues, but how are we going to find their true loves?”

"We could ask them?” Joey suggested, then frowned. "We know Chris is gay. So it has to be a man. What about Nick.”

"I have my suspicions,” Howie said, finishing his tea. "He was always going on about how Chris always hung with Justin. Maybe he was jealous, don’t you think?”

  
**5.-Trying to solve the fucking mess.**   


  
"You’ve got to be kidding." Chris looked at Joey, blinking. "That can’t be the way out of this.”

"I’m sorry, that’s the best bet we have unless you want to keep on looking like Nick Carter all your life," Joey argued, sitting down. They were in a small coffee shop near the hotel where the Backstreet Boys were staying. “You’ve got to get his true love to love him.”

"And how the fuck am I supposed to find his true love, Fatone? Checking his underwear drawer? Looking for long lost love letters?” Chris growled. “You know, maybe it would be easier to just learn to be Nick Carter. Who knows? Maybe I’ll get to like it."

"You hate being Nick,” Joey pointed out and that much was true. Chris hated the situation so much that he was trying his best to carry on with his life not looking at any mirrors.

"So, we have any candidates?” he asked, after a long silence. “Does Howie know who might be Nick’s type?”

"Justin,” Joey said, biting his lower lip.

"Justin?” Chris repeated, not willing to believe his ears. “Our **Justin**? Justin **Timberlake**? The same Justin who is **Britney’s boyfriend**? **That** Justin?”

"The same,” Joey nodded, defeated. “It does sound impossible, doesn’t it?”

"Well, at least I look like Nick Carter. I’m the dream of every teenage girl who doesn’t dream with Justin, and thanks to my lack of impulse control, of every gay man in the country who listens to pop. If I can’t get Justin with this, I’ll be doomed to be a blond for the rest of my life.”

* * *

“I can’t believe you’re telling me that,” Nick shook Chris’s head. He and Howie were staying in Chris’s hotel room, while Chris and Joey talked outside. “That can’t be the cure.”

"It's the only way out of Chris' skin," Howie answered, calmly as he sipped his tea. “You’ve got to find his true love, and make sure they can live happily ever after.”

"But…"

"You want to spend the rest of your life being him?” Howie pointed out, and Nick sighed.

"No, but…"

"Then you have to help Chris to get his true love. And believe me, you got it easy. At least he’s gay, you won’t have to seduce a girl.”

"Sure, I am gay. But the only guy that Chris paid attention to before this whole mess was Justin! How the hell I’m supposed to seduce **Justin**?”

* * *

Justin had always prided himself of being a very open individual, who could accept his friends’ oddities without blinking. Or at least, without making a scene in public.

It came with the territory of having been practically raised on the stage. Don’t make waves, say whatever the public is expecting of you, and keep your image clean.

There were days though, in which those rules were sorely tested. Days like this one, when he woke up to find an email from Nick Carter, asking him if he was free to go out during the week. Apparently, they were going to be on the same city and Nick wanted to show that the old rivalry between bands was a thing of the past.

If it was because of that, then Justin might as well accept the proposal, he figured. There had been a sort of truce between *N Sync and the Backstreet Boys ever since Nick had interrupted Kevin during an interview where Kevin had been saying that *N Sync copied their concerts, by saying that *N Sync were doing their own thing, and that there was enough room on the market for both without having to sound like sour losers just because *N Sync’s album had managed to break sales records.

Lance still laughed whenever he saw that tape. Justin, on the other hand, couldn’t help but feel a bit suspicious, because Nick had defended *N Sync from one of his own bandmates. Nick, who had came out just a couple of months ago, and who now wanted to see Justin, for no apparent reason.

There was something fishy there.

And then there was Chris, who in the past two days seemed intent on recapturing their old friendship, back from the days when the group had barely started and Justin followed Chris everywhere. Only that now, it was Chris the one who followed Justin around. Inviting him to play hoops, play videogames, and to clubs that only Justin liked.

If Justin didn’t know Chris, he would think he was being wooed.

Then again Chris had changed some months back, and so, Justin had to seriously question if the word “wooed” really defined Chris’s intentions towards him.

* * *

“Where is Nick?” AJ asked Howie, wandering into Howie’s room without waiting for an answer.

“He went out to meet Justin,” Howie didn’t even look up from his cup. Back when the group had started, he hadn’t even like tea, but one day his sister had seen him so stressed before a concert that she had recommended tea. Since then every time he needed to remain calm, he fixed himself a cup. People joked that he had gotten hooked on the stuff, and some days, he thought it was true. “Why?”

“I was just curious. So, Justin, uh?” AJ smiled, amused. “Nick’s really decided to go for the big guns this time, didn’t he?”

“What do you mean?” Howie asked, feigning ignorance.

“Oh, you must have noticed,” AJ laughed. “He’s trying to get Chris’s attention. He’s been doing it for a while now.”

“ **Chris’s** attention?” Howie raised his eyebrow. He didn’t need to fake surprise at AJ’s words this time. “What are you talking about?”

“It’s so obvious! Especially after he kissed me. You should’ve seen Chris’s eyes, he looked ready to kill Nick. How Nick knew that would get him jealous? I honestly have no idea,” AJ said, smiling. “But even before that, he was doing it. Every time Chris did something outrageous, Nick had to try and match it. What I don’t know is why he decided to make his move now.”

“Wait,” Howie shook his head, trying to understand. “Are you saying that Nick has a crush on Chris?”

AJ nodded, amused.

“Since when?”

“Two years at least,” AJ’s tone made it sound as if Howie was an idiot for missing it. “He just got really active about it in the past six months. I figured you had talked to him, since it happened when you two started rooming.”

Howie didn’t answer. Instead, his mind was running fast as he tried to review all the things Nick had said and done since changing bodies with Chris. And yes, now that AJ mentioned it, there was a distinctive pattern of a boy pulling the pigtails of the girl he liked in kindergarten.

So far, so good.

But if Nick loved Chris, and Chris loved Justin, and Chris managed to make Justin fall in love with Nick, then things would only get more complicated.

* * *

Justin sighed, nursing his drink. When Chris had suggested they go out clubbing, he had accepted immediately because he figured that Chris needed to get out of the hotel for a while. He just didn’t expect to find that Nick had chosen exactly that same club to go out that night.

So now he was in the very awkward situation of being between two friends who seemed intent on fighting for his attention.

It was unsettling, to say the least.

Justin was not blind. He had come to the conclusion that yes, in the past month and for some unknown reason, Chris had decided to woo him. And even if it made even less sense, it seemed that Nick was directly competing against Chris on that too.

He could very easily be the next step in Chris and Nick’s bizarre war.

And while he enjoyed spending time with Chris, and with Nick for that matter, he had to make it clear to both that he was not going to be a pawn in whatever game they were playing with each other. It wasn’t as if he was interested in any of them anyway, and since he knew they both were trying to upstage the other he wasn’t going to take their attempts to seduce him seriously..

The only problem was, he had no idea of how to do that without telling them that he knew they were trying to get into his pants, and sounding like a self centered idiot.

* * *

After the third time he tried to start a conversation with Justin only to have Nick interrupt them, Chris had had enough.

It was distracting to see his body across the table. It was even more annoying to hear his own voice interrupt him. But what made things worse was to acknowledge the fact that he was only doing this because the idiot who was sitting in front of him had had the terrible lack of common sense of falling in love with Justin.

So he got up, mumbled a hurried apology to Justin, and dragged Nick away to a private booth in the VIP section.

“Whatever you think you’re doing, you’ve got to stop it,” he said, as soon as he was sure they were alone. “Fuck, do you want us to stay like this forever?”

* * *

Being manhandled by his own body was a situation that Nick never thought he would experience. But here he was, trying as hard as he could to seduce the only man straighter than his friend Brian, and then being shoved into a private booth by his angry body controlled by the owner of the body he was currently occupying.

“What do you mean, Kirkpatrick?” he asked, annoyed. “I’m doing what Howie said I had to do to solve this! I thought they told you? Aren’t we on the same page here?”

“Look,” Chris started saying, looking as if he was about to loose his patience. “They said we have to get each other’s true love, right? So I’m trying to make Justin like you. Even if he’s straight, even if he really loves Britney, I’m trying here for you. Would it kill you to stop ruining my efforts?”

“But…” Nick opened his mouth, closed it again, and then raised his hands, shocked. “What are you talking about? Justin isn’t my true love! I don’t even **like** him!”

  
**6.- Who the fuck said I was in love with him?**   


  
“What do you mean you don’t like him?” Chris shook his head, confused. “You’ve got all those magazines with our interviews! I’ve seen them!”

“I don’t have them for **him** ,” Nick said, annoyed. “Anyway, now that you know, you can let me work on getting him to fall in love with you!”

“Why would I want Justin to fall in love with me?” Chris sat in front of Nick. “He’s like a brother to me! I’m not interested in him that way.”

“Justin is not your true love?” Nick asked, ashamed.

“And he isn’t yours, either,” Chris answered, biting his lips. “Ok. Besides the fact that we’re a pair of idiots, where does that leave us?”

“In each other’s bodies with no way out?” Nick slumped his shoulders, feeling very tired of the whole situation. “We’re doomed.”

“Why did you think I was in love with Justin anyway?” Chris frowned suddenly. “ **I** don’t have huge stacks of magazines with our interviews!”

“It’s not like you would need them, you are always with him,” Nick defended himself. “Sometimes it looks like you’re joined at the hip.”

“I could say the same about you and Brian,” Chris pointed out. “And you don’t see me trying to seduce **him**.”

“That would be funny,” Nick admitted. “But having Brian on a silver platter is not going to help us with this problem.”

“So who is it, Nick?” Chris asked. “You do have our clippings, and I know you’re not checking the competition. Is it JC? Lance? If it’s Joey, you’re on your own, since he knows I’m in your body.”

Nick looked down at his feet. It was useless anyway. He was going to confess the truth and Chris was not going to believe him. And he was going to stay in Chris’s body forever, because he was not going to get his man.

“It’s **you**.”

Nick closed his eyes, getting ready for the inevitable rejection. Instead, he felt Chris’s warm hand on his cheek.

He opened his eyes again, surprised.

“We are really a pair of idiots,” Chris said, and Nick saw he had taken out his contact lenses. He was looking at his own face, but at Chris’s eyes. “This could’ve been solved quite easily, you know?”

And before Nick could answer, Chris closed the distance between them, sealing their lips with a kiss.

It was a soft, sweet kiss, and Nick let himself get lost in the sensations. It was strange, to be kissing himself, because even if the one behind the kiss was Chris, Nick was still being kissed by his mouth.

His lips, kissing Chris. He was kissing Chris.

He opened his eyes, amazed at the realization, only to see Chris’s face smiling at him.

Chris’s face, not his own.

“It really was that simple,” Chris laughed. “Welcome back.”

“That was some kiss,” Nick said, still shocked. It was a relief to hear his own voice again, but he felt a little disoriented. “You knocked me right out of my body.”

“Want to try again?” Chris asked, showing him just a little bit of tongue between his lips. Nick had never seen something sexier.

“That would be great,” Nick said, and smiling, leaned in for their first real kiss.


End file.
